Bob Schieffer Lectures New Media

Jul 26, 2010

RUSH: Bob Schieffer, by the way, yesterday on Slay the Nation during his ‘Final Thoughts’ comment, said this.SCHIEFFER: Old media makes its share of mistakes, but not if we can help it. We still call people involved in a story to get their side, editors fact-check, and we never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it’s true.

RUSH: Oh, come on, Bob!

SCHIEFFER: I know the old media can always learn a thing or two from the New Media, and I sure don’t want to lecture the young folks, even the older ones masquerading as New Media. But, hey, if you would just make a call every once in a while to check these things out before you put it on the web, you could save all of us a lot of trouble.

RUSH: What is he talking about? This is the guy who never heard of the New Black Panther story. He’s got a staff who never heard of the New Black Panther story. What’s this lecture? He’s on a high horse about what great fact-checkers he and his fellow apparatchiks are, and these are the guys that publish fake documents — his network — about Bush and the National Guard. ‘We never publish or broadcast anything unless we think it’s true. I know the old media can always learn a thing or two from the New Media, and I sure don’t want to lecture the young folks, but just make a call.’ I probably can’t disagree. I just want it known that in the last five years, I have in her gotten a call from anybody in the old media asking, ‘Did you really say this that Media Matters says you said?’ They never call. Who they supposed to call, Bob? Unless you ‘think’ it’s true? You’re not gonna publish anything unless you ‘think’ it’s true? And make a call to who, other than your fellow liberals? Who? Who?

I’ve never been called and asked, ‘Did you really say this, Limbaugh? There’s been a report here that you did. Did you really say that?’

We do not get those calls. We do get calls, ‘Would you like to come on our show and defend what it says here you said?’

‘Well, we didn’t say it.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Do you want to come on here and defend it anyway?’

‘No. Why would we go on and defend because we didn’t say it.’

‘We want you to defend what you said!’

‘We didn’t say it!’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

It gets into the narrative, and it gets a life of its own such as those supposed quotes that were totally made up, I never said them, when that whole St. Louis Rams-NFL fiasco happened. But even then, even then not one call, Mr. Schieffer, from anybody reporting those quotes asking me if I actually ever said that stuff. And in fact when I openly, on the air said I didn’t say it, the reaction was, ‘Well, maybe not, but we knew you were thinking it! If you didn’t say it, you’re probably capable of saying it because we know who you are.’ That’s the kind of thinking. You guys, you’re fossils. The partisan political operatives of the old media are, plain and simple, fossils. They never, ever call me about any of this misinformation. They don’t even listen to me. They go to these websites that take what I and others say out of context and run with it.

And then if they do call, ‘Do you want to defend yourself on this?’

‘On what?’

‘Well, what it says here that you said.’

‘What’s it say?’ and they tell us what it says that I didn’t say that.

They don’t even go to MY website to read MY transcripts, Bob, and you say you in her put anything on the air unless you ‘think’ it’s true? And you’re advising all these young pups, these young partisan political operatives disguised as journalists, to make a call, to verify? Just make a call? No, if you want it to be true, Bob, is what determines whether it’s true. It’s nothing more complicated than that. If you want it to be true, such as, ‘The US is evil! The US is killing innocent people on purpose in Afghanistan. The US is running secret, covert operations! The US is immoral and unjust!’ You want that to be true so you’ll be happy to report anything at anybody who says that it is without making a call. All these people running the WikiLeaks stuff have been welcome back have they called anybody, whoever wrote this report, and asked, ‘Is this true? There 91,000 reports here. Is all this true?’ Not one call. We know there hasn’t been a call. It would take three weeks to make 91,000 calls.